City owner back on top of rich list

06 October 2010 08:02

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour is back on top of football's rich list, according to the latest figures from FourFourTwo magazine.

The 40-year-old's vast fortune is estimated to have risen by £3billion, moving him back in front of QPR shareholder Lakshmi Mittal, whose fortune has dipped to £17bn.

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, whose wealth once dwarfed all other fortunes on the list, has now dropped as far as fourth - displaced by Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov, whose estate has exploded to rise from £1.3bn to £8bn.

"It's tempting to say that those who live by the rouble, die by the rouble," said FourFourTwo editor Hugh Sleight.

"For so many years, Roman Abramovich was the top dog, but now he faces challenges wherever he looks.

"It isn't that Abramovich has got poorer, but more and more billionaires are coming into English football. When we first published this list in 2003, there were two. Now there are 15."

Usmanov's fellow Arsenal shareholder Stanley Kroenke is eighth on the list with a fortune of £1.85bn, while Mittal's partner at QPR, Bernie Ecclestone, also makes it into the top 10 with his £1.4bn estate.

The controversial owners of Manchester United, the Glazer family, are ranked ninth with an estimated fortune of £1.53bn.

Others figuring in the top 10 are Southampton owners the Liebherr family, fifth with a fortune of £3bn, Tottenham owner Joe Lewis, sixth at £2.7bn, and Celtic's Denis O'Brien, seventh with a fortune of £1.87bn.

Tom Hicks and George Gillett, whose ownership of Liverpool could come to an end if the club's other directors are able to force through a sale, do not feature on this year's list at all.

Having been listed joint 16th last year with an estimated £500million each, analysts said it was now impossible to verify their worth as the turmoil continues at Anfield.

Among players, David Beckham still tops the list by a huge margin, but his worth is said to have dropped from £125m to £100m, pushing him from 38th overall to 49th.

"For Beckham, missing the World Cup and approaching retirement have had an effect and we've cut his value by a fifth to £100million," Sleight said.

"As you'd expect, Brand Beckham have a cunning business plan to ensure their financial power continues even after Becks hangs up his boots, but that's still in its early stages and has yet to bear fruit. So for now, it's down to number 49 for Becks."

That puts him £5m ahead of his predecessor at Eastlands, Fulham manager Mark Hughes, who is joint eighth with Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp and Manchester United reserve-team boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

The list once again demonstrates football's ability to ignore the recession as the overall value has risen to £77bn, £8bn higher than a year ago.